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A team of researchers including Ph.D. student Yingchen Wang and professor Hovav Shacham from The University of Texas at Austin has found that a common feature of modern computer processors can make even carefully written encryption software reveal its secrets when probed by an attacker. The new attack technique, dubbed Hertzbleed, upends decades of guidance for how to write encryption software and may lead to widespread patching as developers come to terms with its implications.

Students and recent graduates in the College of Natural Sciences were awarded the George H. Mitchell Award for Academic Excellence this spring. These awards honor students in STEM and other categories, with generous support provided by the University Co-op. The University of Texas at Austin recognized 12 undergraduate students this year for superior scholarly and creative achievements, highlighting the unparalleled dedication and achievement the students showed in their fields of study. 

Inderjit Dhillon, Gottesman Family Centennial Professor in Computer Science and a member of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, has been named a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).

During the past 50 years, clinical advances have substantially reduced the mortality rate for people with cancer, but new breakthroughs often require years of trial and error in the lab. An innovative partnership between The University of Texas at Austin's Machine Learning Lab, Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences and Dell Medical School aims to speed up those discoveries, saving lives in the process.

The University of Texas at Austin is one of 13 university teams in North America set to participate in the EcoCAR EV Challenge, a prestigious collegiate competition to re-engineer state-of-the-art vehicles and prepare students for the future.

​The National Science Foundation (NSF) awards a Graduate Research Fellowship to students who plan on pursuing a research-based master's or Ph.D. program in a STEM-related field. The fellowship is awarded to exceptional individuals and will support them in elevating their research with the goal of furthering advancements that will transform the future.

In 2020, a deep learning generative model designed to turn low-resolution images into high-quality photos was posted online. When a user uploaded a low-resolution image of President Obama, though, it returned an image that is now referred to as 'White Obama.' The Face Depixelizer model, based on an algorithm called PULSE, was reconstructing images with predominantly white features, setting off a heated debate across social media.

Isil Dillig is an associate professor of computer science who works to improve the security and reliability of software systems and automatically generate programs from high-level specifications. She received a Sloan Research Fellowship and an NSF CAREER award.

As society's reliance on technology increases, computer scientists are now placed at the forefront of new and unique ethical decisions. However, most computer science curricula don't require a substantial education in ethics, despite that an educational discussion on ethical issues can lead scientists to have greater awareness of the consequences and repercussions of their creations.

A new Graduate Portfolio in Computational Medicine combines novel and existing courses from across the University of Texas at Austin to create a unique program in a rapidly expanding medical field.